THE FATE OF FLIGHT 800: THE OVERVIEW

THE FATE OF FLIGHT 800: THE OVERVIEW;AIR CRASH INQUIRY FAILS ANOTHER DAY TO FIND WRECKAGE

By JOHN KIFNER

Published: July 22, 1996

Frustrated by equipment breakdowns, Federal officers searching the tossing waters of the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island failed for a fourth day yesterday to reach the wreckage of Trans World Airlines Flight 800.

Weather and heavy seas had hampered searchers in the previous two days, and yesterday Federal investigators began to worry that the investigation of Wednesday's crash could take far longer than they had originally believed.

Efforts to find the Boeing 747's debris were unsuccessful, even though Coast Guard vessels had crisscrossed the 500-square-mile grid more than 100 times by midafternoon. As a result, divers were not sent into the water yesterday.

With the crucial evidence -- the shattered wreckage -- lying, unlocated, under 120 feet of water, Federal investigators still could not officially declare what they deeply believe: that the explosion was the result of a criminal act.

After last night's press briefing, James K. Kallstrom, the Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in charge of the criminal investigation, said of the day's failures, "It frustrates me."

"The reality is, I need this forensics evidence," he said. "Because if I do have a terrorist, here -- I'm not saying I do -- but if I do, it's another day's head start that this individual has to do whatever he's doing to cover his tracks."

Less than 1 percent of the wreckage has been recovered thus far. And as wind and sea shifted the evidence on the ocean bottom, investigators worried that crucial pieces might be washed away or lost under mounds of sand. Only the night before, a major investigator said he was hopeful that yesterday's search would be "pivotal," with a good chance of finding a substantial amount of the wreckage.

A crucial piece of equipment, the side-scanning sonar, snagged on something on the ocean floor and now has to be retrieved, Federal officials said last night.

Then a video camera sent below to look around failed to work. So, investigators said, they were not even sure if a signal they picked up on Friday indicating a 15-foot object on the ocean floor was, indeed, the trail of debris they had believed it to be.

"It could be anything," acknowledged Al Dickenson, the chief investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.

"We did not move the ball in terms of finding the wreckage," Mr. Kallstrom added. But his agents had questioned "thousands" of people and had made progress in compiling leads for each of the three following possibilities:

"There was a bomb on the plane, the plane was hit with a rocket or there was a mechanical, electrical or some malfunction on the plane that caused the plane to explode," Mr. Kallstrom said.

Early yesterday, Federal investigators reported that a Navy ship had picked up a "ping" sound, presumably from the black box that was a central object of the search. They said the sound was faint and faded in and out.

Later in the day -- after the Navy reported its equipment problems -- naval officers said they had heard no pings. The conflicting accounts could not be resolved.

Once the debris is located, a major investigator said yesterday, a priority will be to check the four engines of the Boeing 747 for any damage that might indicate that a catastrophic mechanical failure was at fault, rather than an explosive device. A second Navy ship, with sophisticated detection equipment on board, is to join the recovery effort today.

As they waited yesterday for the hard forensic evidence of the metal fragments from the airplane, investigators on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, working with other law enforcement agencies, were interviewing scores of witnesses and pursuing possible leads on all fronts.

Federal officials said they were investigating a report that a 30-foot boat from Suffolk County, L.I., was stolen a week to 10 days before Wednesday night's crash.

This, they said, could support the possibility that a missile or a rocket was fired at the plane from a boat large enough to accommodate a launcher for a missile that could reach the jetliner at 13,700 feet, its altitude when it disappeared from radar screens. Investigators said they were still taking the missile theory as seriously as any other because they had interviewed 10 witnesses in various locations -- some of whom were in boats, others who were on shore or airborne -- who recalled seeing something streaking toward the plane before it exploded.

Officials also have dispatched several Federal agents to Athens, the plane's last stop before it flew to Kennedy Airport on Wednesday. They are in Greece to check on the passengers who boarded the plane there, and the cargo loaded there, pursuing the theory that the plane was brought down by a bomb.

Mr. Kallstrom of the F.B.I. has cautioned that it took two and a half days to determine that the attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993 was caused by a bomb, and six days to determine that a bomb brought down Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

Evidence was on the ground in both of those explosions, making the recovery and analysis of evidence easier. In the case of Lockerbie, the crucial piece of evidence was a fingernail-sized fragment of a sophisticated, Swiss-made timing device embedded in clothing. It had been inside the brown Samsonite suitcase in which the bomb was hidden in a Toshiba radio cassette player. That is exactly the sort of evidence investigators are afraid they might never recover in this case.

The searchers did find another body yesterday, the first to be located since 9 A.M. Thursday. With only 101 bodies accounted for, that left most of the 230 passengers and crew aboard the doomed plane still in the waters of Moriches Bay, perhaps strapped into the wreckage.

By evening, 46 of the bodies in the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office had been identified. Gov. George E. Pataki dispatched five additional pathologists and 20 other professionals to help in the autopsies.

But as memorial services were held for the victims yesterday, the frustration and anger of their families continued to mount. Bitter over the slow pace of recovering and identifying the bodies, they met yesterday evening with the medical examiner, Dr. Charles Wetli.

A new clump of debris was found floating on the surface yesterday morning about 25 miles offshore, though it was unclear whether any of this would be central to the case.

"These guys must be tearing their hair," a Federal forensics expert said, adding that the investigators would want to secure the evidence before it drifts off, degrades or disintegrates.

"It's the most frustrating thing in the world," a member of the Joint Task Force said yesterday. "We want to get out there and sprint. We're ready to go, but all we can do is just run in place and wait."

The investigation depends on reconstructing the plane from its pieces ("like building a house out of toothpicks," one specialist described it), which are being laid out on the floor of an old aircraft hangar in Calverton, L.I.

"There's nothing to be done at the hangar," an exasperated Federal agent said. "They are waiting for more wreckage," the agent added. "Everybody is frustrated. There are forensic people with nothing to do. But there is no material."

Coast Guard vessels have crisscrossed a 500-mile search grid more than 100 times and have now narrowed their main search area for the sunken debris to an area of two by four miles, official said last night.

"These men and women are working hard, around the clock," Adm. John Lennan said of his mariners.

The Navy said it was using three search systems to try to locate the data recorders, known as "black boxes," even through they are really international orange in color. These are the ping locater system, a shallow water intermediate search system that maps the ocean floor and a robot-like remote operated vehicle known as a MR2, all aboard a chartered salvage ship, the Piroutte.

Photos: Coast Guard crews spent a frustrating day searching for debris from Flight 800 yesterday, dogged by equipment problems. A new field of debris was found by crews working about 25 miles offshore and 25 miles from the crash site, but the main wreckage eluded the search teams. (Photographs by Chang W. Lee/The New York Times) (pg. B4) Map shows path of Flight 800 and the site of the last transponder signal. (pg. B4)